Great Find: BLT Market

On a whim, City Guy and I went to lunch at Laurent Tourendel's "barnyard-fresh" restaurant BLT Market today. We had stopped at this office in midtown and thought, "hey, let's treat ourselves to lunch." Having eaten at BLT Fish before without being too impressed, we were unsure of what to expect, but we had a really great lunch. A bit pricey for $100 for the two of us (sans alcohol), but very tasty, and I like the idea of eating seasonally and locally.

The restaurant has a homey feel to it--beautifully paintings of produce on the walls, rustic furniture and table settings (a pot of rosemary on each table) and a layout that's open to the street view on 6th Avenue near Central Park South--conducive on a day like today to watching bundled tourists trundling by. The meal starts with the chef's version of pigs in a blanket - tasty little hot dog treat - and piping hot garlic bread with parsley butter. Yum. We started by sharing the chestnut, apple and celery root soup with wild mushroom toast and a foie gras topping and bacon. A perfectly creamy blend of sweet and savory, this was definitely the highlight of our meal.

For main courses, I had the rock shrimp risotto with cauliflower, topped with black truffle. The risotto was perfectly cooked, and the cauliflower pieces were lovely little treats buried in the rice. City Guy had the burger with blue cheese and rosemary fries--he liked the burger very much (you have to love blue cheese) and I couldn't keep my hands out of the fry cup. :) Dessert was the chocolate feuilletine rocky road with coffee cointreau cream glace. Not the most exciting dessert, but tasty enough. Good texture, although it wasn't very "rocky road"-y, as there were no marshmallows.

I love that every once in a while, we can treat ourselves to a really good meal for no reason at all. Love that about this city. There's never an end to the good food.